Magic Saves
by artey.blackburn
Summary: Judith is living among fundamentalist Christians in Indianapolis during the very first magic surge. When she is transformed into something different, reactions are fierce. This prequel injects the universe of Kate Daniels with End-Times hysteria and Celtic mythologies, in order to explore what happened to ordinary people just after the world changed forever.


ONE

There's an art to staying awake during church, especially during the sermon.

As Rev. Peters worked his way through his own text, I skimmed the Apocrypha in Old Irish. Usually it gave my brain a pleasant work-out and kept my language skills sharp. But the languid musicality of the words, as they swam through my sleep-deprived mind, just knocked me right out.

In the dream that came over me, the hard pew seat transformed into a stump. The bright incandescent bulbs in the massive brass chandeliers over my head softened into starlight. The drone of the sermon dwindled down into the susurrus of a forest—the rustle of leaves, the inquiring _hoo?_ of an owl, the crackling of the small fire near my feet.

I drifted in the peace and stillness, while some separate part of me marveled at the realism of the dream. Then the woods went silent, entirely silent, in a way that roused me to awareness.

A voice, rich and powerful, murmured into my ear:** We are coming. **

I jolted awake just as the organ blared, announcing the end of the sermon and the start of the final hymn. I hauled myself to my feet a few beats behind the rest of the congregation. The voice from my dream still resounded in my mind, louder and more full-bodied than the music. I felt it in my hands, too. I was wiggling my fingers when both of my siblings leaned forward to peer at me with amusement and curiosity.

In my parents' church, families sat in 'proper' order: father on the aisle, mother beside him, then the children oldest to youngest. That placed me – uncomfortably – between Aaron on my left and Mom on my right. But it gave Aaron, Naomi, and I space to talk if we wanted. That's what siblings do, no matter how old they are.

"You better not even yawn," Aaron warned me under his breath. He took the hymnal from me and opened it. Naomi and I huddled up under the pretense of sharing.

"I'm trying hard not to." The teeny words and musical notes blurred together when I tried to focus on the page.

Naomi eyed me. "Are you okay?"

"I slept on the couch in my office last night," I explained. "For all of four hours."

"When does the exhibit open?" Aaron asked.

"Tomorrow morning." The Indianapolis Museum of Antiquities employed me as principal liaison to the security team. We were just about to debut a once-in-a-decade collection of Germano-Celtic artifacts. I had been working twelve-hour days for a month, poring over every precious weapon and armament, making sure the displays were both appropriate and secure.

"Judith."

We turned in unison to see Mom glaring at us. "Behave yourself," she grumbled. "All of you," she added as an afterthought.

I was just about to say something unedited and probably unforgivable, but the words died on my tongue. All along my spine, my skin contracted, starting at my tailbone. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I realized that everyone else around me was twitching or flinching as well, like someone had walked over our graves.

Over our heads, all of a sudden, the light from all the chandeliers and sconces winked out simultaneously. At the same moment, the organ bellows seized up and the music wheezed to a dead stop. All around me, the older worshippers turned to each other with exclamations of surprise.

"Maybe the janitor blew a fuse," Mom told Dad.

Aaron was stabbing the power button on his Motorola, over and over, while his brow wrinkled up with concern. "That wouldn't kill our phones."

He held it out. The phone lay bricked in his hand. Naomi revealed hers also, completely black and unresponsive. I dug into my pocket as I glanced around. No one had a working phone, myself included.

Up front, Rev. Peters was conferring with the organist. She was pulling stops and flicking switches, trying to revive the organ, and finally shaking her head. The choir peered over the tops of their binders, watching and listening in.

Finally, Rev. Peters turned to the congregation and lifted a hand to call for attention. "Just a hiccup," he promised, raising his voice to be heard without a microphone. "If the organist will come down to the piano and play, we can just start again. All right?" He gave us a wide, breezy smile. "All right."

The candles on the altar behind him outlined the rich blue folds of his robe with a tiny rim of light. The organist was already sliding out from behind the organ, giving everyone who met her eye a confident little nod. All around me people made small sounds of relief and acceptance, but I wasn't reassured.

In the background, behind all the nervous murmurs, an unsettling silence loomed as large as the recesses of the vaulted ceiling over our heads. Twenty-first century life has its own soundtrack. It's made up of millions of tiny nearly indistinguishable sounds of motors, of machines, keeping a steady tempo that reminds us all is well.

But all was _not_ actually well. I could hear it and I could feel it. The primal part of my brain was still registering a wrongness that, for some reason, brought back my dream.

Something—someone?—was coming.

Just as Mrs. Peters was poised to restart the music, her hands lifted over the piano keys, a faint whistling note started to echo through the sanctuary. It grew louder, slicing through the silence, sounding just like—

"Bomb!" A man with a buzz cut jumped up on his pew and yelled, "It's a bomb! _Take cover!_"

I dropped to my knees and flung my arms over the back of my skull. The tell-tale scream rose to an impossible pitch. The sound ended with a crunching smash. The building shuddered through the bones of my legs. Zinging streaks of pain ripped across my forearms.

Dust hung everywhere, thick and blinding. My arms started to throb. I coughed, inhaled the choking air, and coughed again. I had to raise my head to breathe.

Sunlight dazzled me, so bright I raised a hand to block it. I saw the blood dripping down my forearm from dozens of tiny razor-thin cuts. A sliver of bright green glass, embedded in my skin, winked at me.

There was a jet, a small passenger jet, lying crooked and crumpled across the side of the room where several rows of pews – and a wall of stained glass windows – used to be. Rows of smashed clay roof tiles, raw shattered wood, and chunks of mortared brick wall lay scattered over a third of the sanctuary. There were bodies crushed under the rubble.

A blurred shape swooped through the ruined wall to land backwards on top of the plane.

It was the largest bird I had ever seen, easily as big as my car, and its weight made a dent in the crinkled metal. It bobbed and danced for purchase, its tail flaring out to reveal furry legs like a lion's ending in claws the length of butcher knives. Then the massive wings arched, folding up and back as it turned. It had the feathered, powerful torso of a hawk—and the shoulders and head of a woman.

I just—stared.

It couldn't be what it looked like, because it looked like an image I had seen in the museum.

And yet, the creature in front of us suddenly tilted its head like a crow, hopped down onto the back of a ruined tilted pew, and dipped down to pluck a bloody shred of meat out of the wreckage.

It was real.

Naomi shrieked and the creature's head whipped around.

It dropped its head low between its shoulders, raised its wings, and screamed again. Its glowing blue eyes expanded to the size of hub caps, wide and furious, as if Naomi had challenged its right to its meal.

I didn't think. I pushed forward, past Aaron, and I put myself between Naomi and the creature.

"Judith!" Dad yelled.

I walked forward to the edge of the destruction, as close as I could get, and widened my stance. The warmth intensified. The creature extended its wings as far as it could, menacing and enormous. I felt the bone-deep need to curl my fingers, to grasp something. I extended my arms, flared my fingers, and slowly curled them in again. The heat against my palms felt heavy and alive—and then it surged outwards.

Bright light enveloped me. I felt heat, living heat, circle against the inside of my right hand. I looked down as the weight against my hand increased. The bright golden light drew together and took the shape of a sword—a beautiful sword with a fullered blade, a curved golden guard, and a pommel studded with gleaming stones.

More weight tugged at my other arm, across the back of my hand. The light circled and swirled into the shape of a shield, a perfect circle banded with a golden edge and squared studs. It lay snugly against my forearm, strapped with leather, light but sturdy.

The light plunged into my body to gather me up onto to my toes. It splayed through my bones, across my back, pushing out through my muscles. I felt the width of my body expand and extend until I realized I was gently hovering over the floor.

I had wings. _I had wings_.

The creature screamed at me with utter fury, its toes contracted, its talons splintering the polished wood. I pointed my sword at it and the light surged out from the point. The light struck the creature in the neck. The creature stumbled, its snarling mouth red with human blood. I locked eyes with it and pointed my sword again. The creature tensed down into a crouch and pushed itself airborne. It disappeared into the summer sky, leaving nothing behind but a swirl of dust.

I dropped down slowly till my toes met the floor. I felt my wings draw up and fold to settle tightly to my back. The sword and shield contracted, glowing and shrinking, till I cupped them into my palms. Then the light blazed one last time and marked my skin. On my left palm, I had a simple neat circle with a dot in the center. On my right, a long narrow vee.

I turned around with my hands still extended, my palms turned upwards, and found every pair of eyes on me. Overwhelmed, I searched my siblings' faces and found nothing but shock. Mom looked at me with utter disbelief and fear.

Dad's expression resembled nothing but childlike wonder, a dazed and ecstatic look that he shared with Mom before she turned to someone else. The look started to spread from person to person while I watched, like an emotional virus.

"My brothers and sisters—" Rev. Peters began, with fierce joy written all over his face, "it's the end of the world."

"Oh, _no_," Aaron muttered near my ear, as Naomi's hand snuck into mine.


End file.
